Maximum Ride: ANGEL Spork Part 3

Where were we? Oh, right. Max has to have kids because of reasons or something. It’s all really more vague than it needs to be but that’s what happens when your characters are anticipating an apocalypse that you don’t have the details for yet. “Yeah, the end of the world is coming except some people will survive and you’ll need to have superpowers to live, and you need to create a dynasty to rule over your super-powered underlings, because something is going to happen. I can’t tell you what.”

Obviously, Dr. Gunther-Hagen wants Max “breed” with Dylan, and wants them to come to Germany with him. Apparently he’s forgotten that Max has established the fact that she won’t work with him. JPatterson also seems to have forgotten that DR. GUNTHER-HAGEN KILLED FANG. Why else would Max even listen to what he has to say oh yeah, because the plot demands it. Sigghhhhhh

Chapter 9

We’re with Fang, who’s been watching some guy. Said guy is a “candidate,” probably for a Super Secret Mission that’s So Shadowy and Mysterious I wonder what it could be!!!!!

Fang pounces on the guy but the guy isn’t there and the guy has a knife to Fang’s throat! And then Fang disarms him.

In the same instant Fang’s, other hand clapped over the guy’s mouth. (pg 33)

Was this book not copyedited? Jeez. How do you miss a stray comma like that?

So Fang pounced on this guy, but apparently they know each other as they share a password. Logic. And then the guy agrees to something.

And so it began. This guy made it into Fang’s new flock–of one. (pg 34)

That, uh, makes no sense. It’s as literal a contradiction as you can get.

Chapter 10

We’re back with Max. And we’ve seen a little timeskip as they’re now eating lunch with Dr. Gunther-Hagen what. And he and Jeb have another request for Max, to go to the Maximum Ride version of the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters and meet the super-powered kids so they can recognize her and vice versa.

I gestured at him [Dr. Gunther-Hagen] with my sandwich. (pg 36)

Nitpick: contextually, this “gesture” would seem to be her pointing at him, but if she had pointed at him, that word should have been used instead of “gestured”. So since the word “pointed” wasn’t used, it would indicate that Max made some other gesture, which leaves me wondering what kind of gesture can you make at someone with a sandwich other than pointing at them.

Max says she doesn’t want to go, and Angel and Dylan back her up.

It would have been churlish to remind Dylan just then that he wasn’t part of my flock. (pg 37)

What, so now Max cares about being polite? I just looove consistent characterization.

Max’s mom says that they should go and Max gives in to her authority, which as much as it’s just for the sake of plot movement, I think is actually in line with Max’s character. It also means a lot from a character standpoint, as while Max usually hates authority, she loves her mom and respecting her authority shows that and, as I said, means a lot. Not that it’s likely JPatterson thought that far into this.

Chapter 11

Max is flying next to the plane (both her and it heading to the superkid school), which is holding everyone else. Never mind the flock’s claustrophobia.

Angel telepathically points out the camouflaged school and Max speeds up and

I don’t know what made me look up at that moment, but I did, and suddenly, not fifty feet in front of my face, was a huge, clear–jellyfish? I was going almost three hundred miles an hour and I plowed right into that sucker. (pg 40)

So she saw it after looking up and it was falling and just happened to hit her as she was going forward? Or she looked up and then looked forward and it was there? The first is highly implausible and the second doesn’t seem to fit with what’s written. And, she’s going NEARLY THREE HUNDRED MILES PER HOUR?????

Chapter 12

So the “jellyfish” is some transparent balloon that bounces Max back sixty feet. There are a bunch of these things (Max says “hundreds” which is an implausibly high number) and they’re tethered to the ground by metal wires that cut through Max’s feathers when she tests them. She tries to warn Angel but it’s too late and the plane sucks one of the balloons into its intake. This causes a giant explosion, and then the plane’s wings are sheared off by the wires. So I guess the balloons are in neat rows or something? Who knows. But oh no, the plane has no wings! Max is keen to point out how bad that is, never mind that there was also an explosion that would have done a ton of damage to the plane anyway.

Chapter 13

So the reason why Max was the only one not flying in the plane is for this to be Scary and Dramatic because everyone is stuck in the plane! JPatterson, I see your transparent plotting that contradicts established character traits. I’d say nice try, but you didn’t even try.

The plane nosedives and Max says they “only had seconds” but then a good minute or two of action takes place. Iggy and Nudge get their wings torn up by the wires, but not cut off because that would be consistent with the way the wires were described, slicing Max’s feathers like nothing.

Nudge and Iggy were now totally out of control, cartwheeling through the air. The pain in their sliced wings made them want to close them, and the air billowing through their feathers was making their injuries worse. (pg 45)

Max. You are a first person narrator. Unless otherwise specified, you cannot be omniscient! That is not how writing works! Grrrrrrr

Max is conflicted because only her, Nudge, Iggy, and Angel are out of the plane and who does she save?! Well the flock of course. The next chapter skips back to Fang so I’ll go ahead and end this spork here. It’s not like you don’t know everyone’s going to get out alive.

I mean, there’s also the fact that the wires successfully sliced off an airplane’s wings to begin with. xD You know, I’d completely forgotten that the best weapon against metal boxes meant to survive pressure and intense windspeed at a cruising altitude of 35,000 feet while moving at about five hundred miles per hour are completely vulnerable to really, really sharp wires held in the air by balloons. In fact, this is such a plausible plan; I have no idea why terrorists haven’t been using this stuff instead of hijacking.

Like.

Even if this is a tiny plane going at mediocre speed there’s no physically possible way that the balloon could have enough upward force to keep the wires taut to shear through the wings and it was totally fine having the balloons derp up the engines BUT THEN NO, WE HAD TO GO FOR DRAMA POINTS, DIDN’T WE.